Anderson teen scores on trophy buck with crossbow

Young Williams didn't take father's advice and picked lucky stand

If Robert Williams had his way, his 13-year-old son, Carter, would have been sitting in a different stand when a record-book Anderson County buck went out for a stroll the evening of Oct. 12. Fortunately, Carter Williams really wanted to sit in a ladder stand where he’d seen several deer the previous season, and it worked out in a 140-inch buck.

“I tried to talk him out of it,” Robert Williams said. “We had walked around the stand before the hunt and it just didn’t look good. It was Carter’s first hunt of the year and really one of the few times he’s ever sat by himself.”

At around 6:45 p.m., the Robert Williams heard his son’s crossbow go off. Knowing he had to shoot the bow to de-cock it, Williams thought his son had decided to cut the hunt early before it got fully dark.

“At first, I thought I was dreaming, just imagining the deer that walked into view,” said Carter Williams. “He walked in, then walked away from me, then circled back and walked up to the feeder about 25 yards away from the stand.”

Raising his Parker Tornado crossbow, armed with a Rage-tipped bolt, Carter Williams had the foresight to aim slightly high, putting his 25-yard pin just above the buck’s vitals, before squeezing off the shot, which did considerable damage to the buck.

“I got down when I heard the shot, to see why he was getting down early,” said Robert Williams, who was hunting a stand about 500 yards from his son on a 100-acre tract of leased land. “He said ‘I shot a deer, a buck and I think he’s a big one.’

“We found his arrow, and it was covered with blood, so we went back to the truck to wait, but I couldn’t stand it. We both wanted to see what he’d shot.”

The Carters found the buck, which had gone about 30 yards from where it was shot, piled up.

“We started dragging the deer back to the truck, but we were both so excited, we got turned around in the dark and got lost,” Carter Williams said. “My dad called his buddy to come help us, and it turned out we were only 20 yards from the road.”

Williams delivered the buck, which weighed right at 200 pounds and was green-scored in the low 140s, to Chuck’s Taxidermy in Anderson for processing and to have the buck caped and mounted. He also entered the buck in South Carolina Sportsman’s Bag-A-Buck contest for October.

“I don’t think anyone realizes what he’s done,” said Robert Williams. “That’s his first buck and probably bigger than any of us will see in a long time.”